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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Wow, what a weekend! Our 14th Annual Gallery Show and Sale is now another page in the history of this interesting and creative group.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of you who attended our show. We thank you for your support and hope you enjoyed your visit! A special thanks to those of you who drove from LaGrange, Kentucky to attend our show. We congratulate you on winning the raffle prize, which will be mailed to the address on your raffle ticket on Tuesday, November 15, 2011.

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Fairy Village Challenge...this images shows all entries into this fascinating and fun challenge. Keep scrolling to see close-ups of each entry...and the winners are announced near the end of the article!

﻿ Second, a big thanks to the Kennedy Heights Art Center for their wonderful support. Ellen, Scott and Lee went above and beyond the call of duty to make this show a pleasant experience for our group. Keep in mind that they had a special event Friday night. Saturday morning Scott had to come in early enough to clean and prepare the rooms for our show set-up, which started at 8 a.m. He did a superb job! Then, the KHAC had musical event scheduled for Sunday evening at 6 p.m. Lee was patiently waiting our tear-down at 4 p.m. so he could get the building ready for this event. If you are an artist in the Greater Cincinnati area who is looking for a wonderful place to display your art, you must check out this gallery. If you are interested in finding art to purchase for the holiday season, the KHAC has a wonderful gift shop...please check it out.

Entry by Katie Storer.

Entry by Nita Keeler.

Next, I’d personally like to thank our “Helping Hands” for the weekend – Judy Witt, Cody Goodin, Sue O’Dell and Holly Alder. They kept me sane and helped make this event run smoothly. Please accept a virtual hug from me to all of you.

Entry by Robbie Porter.

I would like to put a name with this entry - let's call this naturalistic piece Entry #1 - email the answer to me so that I can give proper credit.

Entry by Kathy Garnar.

My last thanks goes to all the fantastic artists in this group. I love and respect you and your work immensely and I think we all did ourselves proud this weekend. I am humbled to be associated with such talented people. In a nutshell – we ROCK!

Entry by Linda Berkemeier.

Entry by Elizabeth Marten.

Again, we will call this Entry #2 - please give me a name via email so I can give proper credit to the artist who created this darling piece.

Our second challenge was the Viewer's Choice Award. Below, please see the entries for this challenge.

Entry by Linda Berkemeier.

Entry by Robbie Porter.

Entry by Judy Witt.

Entry by Debra Wallace.

Entry by Elizabeth Marten.

The Fairy Village Challenge was sponsored by the Plaza Artist Materials, Clifton Branch, 230 W. McMillan Street, Cincinnati, OH 45219. They have supported our challenges for a number of years now and the first place winner received a gift certificate in the amount of $25.00. The idea fot this challenge came from Kathy Garnar, Nita Keeler, Jenny Boggs and Linda Berkemeier. We thank them for such a creative challenge.

Congratulations to all the entrants for a job well done. Second place went to Katie Storer. A special congratulations to the First Place winner, Robbie Porter!

We will replace this photo with one showing the winner with her piece as soon as it is available to us.

Our Viewer's Choice Award competition has no rules. The artists in this challenge are given free reign as far as what they can make and enter into this competition. The winner receives a lovely plaque. This year our runner up was Linda Berkemeier. Congratulations to our winner, Judy Witt.

Again, a caption show Judy with her winning piece will replace this image as soon as it is available to me.

By the end of the Thanksgiving weekend I hope to have all the images from this show added to our Flicker site. If you sign up (on the right side of this screen, near the top) to receive blog updates, you will be notified the day after the update occurs so that you may see the rest of our show.

Thank you for visiting - for more details about our December luncheon, please check out the Events page (button at the top of this column).

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Wow, it has been a while since I posted to the site - sorry about that. Please check out our Events Page - new information has been posted there.

The Guild thanks all visitors who chatted with us at the Sharonville Quilt Expo this weekend. We again extend an invitation to all of you curious about our group and hope you will visit with us at your earliest opportunity. The Events page details our upcoming guild plans.

We have yet to post photos and other information about our wonderful combined meeting with the Columbus group, "The Guilded Lilies". Robbie Porter did an excellent job showing us how to create a coiled basket. We are blessed with many former school teachers in our group, and they always do an excellent job teaching us various projects!

I hope to have all photos and other news posted before October 1, 2011. Thanks for your patience!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Wow, it has been a long couple of days, but I have redesigned our blog. I hope you like it. We have moved some of items into separate pages. Most importantly, the Events section has been given its own page. If you wish to see what we are up to (and we hope you do!), please click on the Events button above. On the right we have a slide show playing from our Flickr site. If you wish to see larger copies of these images, and a description of what you are seeing, just double click on any of the slides and you will be taken to our Flickr page. Additionally, please note that we are separating our photos into "sets". We invite you to check out all of our sets while you are there.

Subscription Button

Finally, we have a subscribe button on the home page, right-hand column to find the button. We hope that you will consider "subscribing" to our blog. That way you will be notified whenever we make an addition to the site.

Show and Tell

The coiled basket you see here was designed and made by Robbie Porter for a gallery show she did during the winter 2010. We thought the ability to learn this traditional technique may allow us to turn it into a doll of sorts - so Robbie will be teaching us how to do this technique during our August 2011 meeting. Details about the workshop and meeting can be found in the "Events" section - button above.

The two quiltlets here represent works-in-progress by Carole Staples. She is masterful in accessorizing these wonderful pieces and we hope to be able to show you her completed designs in the very near future.

Unfortunately, I am not a very good photographer. The coiled cup above is about 4" tall and is made from a large beading thread (used for large-holed beads and macrame'). It took Robbie Porter about four months to finish this piece.

Katie Storer is still caught up in the process of creating Zentangles. The Dollstreet Dreamers (an online doll club) has issued a challenge to create a doll of any sort that has been "tangled". To start her creative juices following, Katie "doodled" this with little thought and now has bigger and better plans for her challenge project.

These two beauties were created by Liz Marten. The doll on the left was made in a class taught by Monika Shedden at the 2011 AFIC conference. Her dress is made with a used dryer sheet which has been embellished with pieces of lace, decorative stitching and Jacquard metallic paints. The doll on the right was born from a challenge issued by the Waynesville Ohio doll club. They asked members to use the cardboard cores from paper towels to create a doll. This lavender beauty is the result of that challenge.

Finally, another piece by Robbie Porter - this quilt is approximate 3 x 3 feet. It is based on an AQS fat quarter challenge. She received the dark brown fabric. Challenge rules dictated that the quilt had to be based on a crazy quilt or log cabin pattern. Obviously, she chose the log cabin pattern! The center panel is of special attention as she wove metal strips with fabric strips. She enjoyed the process so much that she plans on doing more of this mixed media work this season.

Plans for the Future!

If you are a new doll maker and are interested in learning doll making techniques, please know that two of our veteran doll makers, Nita Keeler and Liz Marten, have volunteered to always be prepared to demonstrate how tiny doll fingers are turned (Nita) and how to sculpt a cloth face (Liz). We would love to invite you to join one of our meetings and see what we are all about. We are in our 14th year and we remember how exciting it was to join this group a long time ago. We would like to give you the opportunity to learn the techniques we know and are quite willing to share them with you.

In the Events section you will see that we have scheduled some special events that take us through the end of the year. The public is invited to join us in these ventures. You may just show up if you so desire, however, if you have an opportunity to give us a little bit of notice, we will be able to better accommodate your presence at these meetings. Please feel free to leave a comment below, I should be notified when a comment is added here and will try and get back to you within a day or two via email.

Members - please check out the "Reminders" page to help you remember what you volunteered to do for the guild in a fit of madness....uhmmm...I mean because we are all such charming and altruistic people enthused about the direction our guild is taking and hoping to keep on track and race towards a bright future. The public is welcome to read this, although it'll be pretty cut and dried...however, it will give you an idea how we run the guild and, if you like it, where we are headed in the future.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Please note, our original plans to tour the Maysville Museum this month have had to be put on hold so that we can cover the twice postponed "Doll Camp". Once for rain and once for lack of attendance.

The new date for the Doll Camp is Saturday, July 9, 2011 from 8:00 a.m. until 5 p.m. There is still room open for this function and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible if you'd like to attend. Again, this is a 10 yard fabric dyeing class. We will be using professional dyes with high quality pigments to do many different types of dyeing techniques. It is a messy process and we will be working outside, so bring your sunscreen, and brown bag lunch which can be kept in a fridge for you.

The supply list is long, but I found that I already had most of the items at home. Please let us know if you need the list sent to you again.

July 16, 2011 - Guild Meeting at the Kennedy Height Art Center

We would like to implement a "Work in Progress" function to our meetings - "Getting back to our roots". We invite everyone - members and guests alike to bring a work in progress with them to the meeting. In addition to working on our projects, we are all asked to share with the group your process, inspiration or motivation. Also we work like for each member to come to the next meeting with two ideas to invigorate the group and make it more fun and interesting.

Besides our regular meeting agenda, we would like to discuss ideas for classes, putting a pattern book together for sale at events and making a pamphlet to promote the group.

Monday, May 9, 2011

The Guild has been busy this month! Thanks to Carole Staples for the amazing job she did with the "Fibers" show at the Kennedy Heights Art Center. Nita Keeler was the first artist to speak at the lecture series for this month-long show.

Robbie Porter won Best of Show for her quilt at the Quiltfest in Rising Sun, Indiana during February 2011:

Finally, we were surprised by Linda Berkemeier, Kathy Garnar and Nita Keeler's lovely "fairy gardens". In fact, we enjoyed these pieces so much that we decided to make these our challenge projects for the November 2011 gallery show. Everyone in the group is challenged to "build" their own vision of a fairy house - garden - or whatever you want to call it. Please enjoy the images below:

Made by Kathy Garnar.

Made by Linda Berkemeier.

Made by Nita Keeler.

Aren't they wonderful? Please put on your thinking cap and see what YOU can develop for the November show.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

February was an exciting month as our deadline for the Fat Quarter Challenge were due today. Each member was given a one fat-quarter of a batik fabric. Each fabric was a different color, so the challenge dolls are all very unique. All photos below were taken by Katie Storer.

Small dolls by Carole Sanders.

Fairy by Robbie Porter.

Woodland fairy by Liz Marten.

Cody Goodin's doll has a wire armature with the batik fabric and art papers decoupaged over the wire frame.

Kathy Garnar's doll is a great study in a monochromatic theme!

The following photos are dolls not included in the challenge. First up is returning member, Linda Berkemeier, who has been away from the guild for most of the year. Her felted pieces below range in height from about 3 inches to about 7 or 8 inches in height. For Linda, these are large dolls...seriously!

Newest member in the group, whose name will be added at a later date, joined us today with this awesome mermaid. I apologize for not having her name handy right now, but I'm sitting in Starbuck's without my notes. I promise to update the post with her name very shortly!

Next week I'll add the March photos - along with the first notice we have about our November show! Please note that our May meeting will be held at the Sherman House (a German restaurant) in Batesville Indiana the third Saturday of the month at 11 a.m. More information will be forthcoming. Please email Katie Storer at storerkl@uc.edu to let her know if you plan on attending. Thank you!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Members and guests alike are welcome to attend our guild meeting on Saturday, February 19, 2011. Please note that the Board will be meeting separately, starting at 11:00 a.m. The membership is invited to join us at 11:30 a.m. (For meeting location, please see the right hand column of this blog.)

Reminders:

Show and Tell will be the first item on the agenda - please remember to bring your fat-quarter challenge pieces, as well as any other art works you'd like to share with the group. (It does not have to be a doll - it can be any piece of art that shows a technique you'd like to share with the group.)

Make and Take It Robbie Porter asked me to send the following on to you:

For the Make and Take Kits I will bring a rotary cutter, ruler and cutting mat for cutting the fabric pieces.

Folks do not need to cut fabric ahead of time and fat quarters are good sizes to bring.

It helps if the fabric is ironed and we have found that bright fun colored cottons or batiks sold best.

Black and white prints were also popular with folks selecting kits.

If you do have the time and inclination to iron your fabric to speed up the process, why not hang your fabric on a coat hanger to keep it nice and neat while traveling to the KHAC tomorrow?

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Wow, I apologize in not being able to post for a long while. My goal this year is to see that we post at least once a month to let everyone know what wonderful things we have planned for 2011.

First, let's summarize the last quarter of 2010.

The RiverCity Figurative Artists' Guild held their 13th Annual Gallery Show and Sale at the Kennedy Heights Art Center. We celebrated the holiday season with a luncheon and a challenge...the Board handed out gifts of one fat quarter for each member (and some guests) present at the meeting. Each fat quarter is a different color and we look forward to seeing what our members create with them. The challenge is due on Saturday, February 19, at our meeting - see details in the right hand column of this blog.

Thanks to Deb Wallace, we had a wonderful turn out at our August 2010 class with Cindee Moyer. Not only did many of our own guild members attend these classes, but we also had attendees from the Cleveland, Columbus and Indianapolis doll clubs. Additionally, several members of our local CQAFA (art quilt guild) also attended.

I apologize to Cindee for not publishing the following sooner. Thanks to Robbie Porter for the class photos and to Deb Wallace for the finished doll photos.

Cindee taught this one-day class twice - this photo shows the Saturday class. Cindee's original doll, designed specifically for this class, has been featured on our blog below. Cindee has now turned this into a pattern for sale to the general public at her website.

This is a completed doll by Carol Lang - it is her first doll and she so enjoyed herself that she decided to become a member of our guild! Welcome Carol, we are happy to have you. You did a marvelous job. Cindee designed this pattern to include fabric that we made by cutting stripes of coordinating fabric into 1/2" to 3/4" strips. From there, they were pieced to make the dress itself. We then were able to use ribbons and trims over top to "hide" in variances in the seams between the front an back dress panels. Carol, as a quilter, didn't need to add ribbons since she sewed her strips together almost perfectly...however, she did add the trim even though it wasn't necessary.

Above are photos of Cindee's original dolls that she brought to show us. I believe all of them employee the face mask technique that she taught to our class. Covering the ugly seam that runs down the middle of the face is very easy when using her technique. I wish we had a detailed photo of her dolls to show you. They are wonderful and full of many wonderful details.

This doll is named "Isabella" - she was made by Paloma from Cleveland, OH.

This doll was made by Katie Jones - of the Indy Doll Club. Isn't it wonderful how we can individualize our dolls, while still learning the various techniques?

Thanks to everyone who attended our final quarter events. We are sorry there are no more photos to show you at this time. We hope to add many new items to the blog this year, so please keep checking back.